Training Log Archive: Psuba

Longer tempo interval session, with the push sections aimed at 4:30 pace for about 5kms at a time.
Doubled this as a session to buy tickets to the UK Open, so ran on the promenade.

Pretty miserable weather, rain, wind and cold, so cut shorter than originally planned as I just did not fancy being out there longer.

Event: SOC Level C & SCOL 5
 

SOC Parkhill Enclosure event (Level C).

4th / 15 on the Brown course, and quite a mixed race.

I tried in the morning whether I can put on a proper O-Shoe but that's a no-go still The iRocks that I normally would wear for this terrain have hurt my toes as soon as I put them on. In the end I used the More Mile shoes that are really not for this terrain as they fill up with water fast and get heavy and cold, I have them more for dry races, and with the recent rain the New Forest terrain is anything but. At least it has a relatively roomy toe box so whilst it was pressing on my toe, it was bearable - and by the time I was out on the course it did not cause much discomfort in that regard. I was quite keen to try out how my toe affects me after 2 weeks in a terrain and orienteering situation.

As far as the course goes, it was a decently planned one - to be honest this terrain mostly would predict a compass bearing exercise as it is mostly runnable (though with undergrowth in places and definitely very boggy - often it would be slower to run on tracks because of the mud than in the surrounding forest despite the branches and stuff).

I started fairly decent, although based on the splits still slower than Laurence T (I don't even compare myself yet with Tom B who is much younger and duly won), until about control 9 where I was about a minute slower, and I can't figure out why?! I suspect my route choice has to do with it - I first ran on the road then after crossing the fences I switched to the forest. I suspect it would have been faster the other way around, but it is a huge time loss that I find difficult to explain. Further losses that I know about:
11 - I was very hesitant getting to the broken ground and then finding my way around it - probably lost about 30s
From this point on I was noticeably slowing down in the splits. In fact, I did feel weaker and took a gel on the way to 12, so clearly some slowdown is due to physical condition from here.
12 - Apart from taking gels and observing a herd of about 20 deers running about 10m from me, I did make a directional error out of 11 her losing about 20s as well.
15 - the first big mistake. I took a dive in the middle of the leg, and that has shaken me up a bit (although this was me kicking something with the leg that isn't my damaged one), I think this possibly contributed to my confusion once I came across a control at a ditch junction. I knew it wasn't mine, but could not find it on the map. I finally concluded that it was what was mapped as a ditch end with a small clearing, but not before even checking if this was my #2 control which was nearby. I was totally confused and spent about 1m here, and this is where Laurence caught me up and ran past.
16 - As I was running through the woods I saw an elder lady taking a tumble so I stopped to check if she was OK. She wasn't, then she was - so I spent about half a minute on this. This was just enough to lose sight of Laurence ahead and I was running alone again from here. I also made too many hesitations here and directional changes due to the undergrowth that wasn't consistent with the map, so probably lost more here (over 1min down on the split, but unsure how much of this is attributable to simply being slower)
21 - ran past the control the stopped and spent again too much time hesitating. Finally decided to just run to the junction and try again with a different bearing that worked. It took me 2 min however.

So all in all about 4.5 min avoidable mistakes if only I was a bit more assertive with my approach!

Bournemouth Parkrun #181

18/479: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/bournemouth/results/week...

Quite windy and cold. With some decent warm-up and stretching I managed to get under 20min again, although wasn't hopeful when I felt the wind during the warm-up. Happy to finally run in a running shoe, tried it to see what my toe reacts, although to be fair this is still an older shoe with a roomy toebox. It felt OK though.

Also happy with the time given the conditions, the target for 2017 is to be consistently under 20min but I need to get to the point where it is less effort because I was giving 90-100% all the way, and that is not a sustainable effort for longer distances, and this is a pace I would need to consistently keep under.

Some strength and core exercises to round out the hour

Event: SOC Wessex Night League Event
 

Romsey Wessex Night League, more a Street-O type event, except that there were proper controls out (thank you) as opposed to the SLOW Street-O events where you have to write down clues at every "control". Touch-free punching also meant better flow in/out of the controls (usually - I had to double back for a few that didn't register first).

Well planned by RHF, you really had to think and there were quite a few options, not only for the generic strategy but specifically in between quite a few pairs of controls the route to choose. This is in my mind an indication of good planning as it reduces dead running - even though some of that is inevitable in a street event and there was some here too. A really nice intricate area in the NE corner of the map, had to take it carefully and almost felt like a Sprint event in that area with lots of rapid decisions and the opportunity to practice route simplification a bit.

2nd place, exactly like I expected when I went through in my head driving there trying to guess the likely contenders. Dave C won, and whilst in hindsight I don't think my strategy was the best, he seems to have followed most of the same strategy, so this was purely about him being faster than I am. Not really a surprise there, but a confirmation of an aim for myself to work towards :)
Made a few errors amounting to about 2 min altogether (this includes changing my mind and doubling back a few times), and from a running perspective felt quite tired in the middle section. Once I conquered the uphill it became easier and somehow I also felt fresher from that point as well, so tried to push.

Balham Street-O

No clue about position, as it is not published yet, but probably didn't do very well. As usual, didn't really have a good strategy and running wise felt quite a slog. Not sure if it is the long drive up (late to get there, thanks to traffic), yesterday's training, lack of warm-up... but this did not feel good from a running perspective. I suppose one needs these type of sessions too for improvement - the Street-O events are anyway forming part of my training regime simply to get away from boring running. Navigation is usually simple, but still there were quite a few tactical errors in the ordering of the controls that I have made.

Getting food!

To Uni for the Wessex training as a warm-up. Late as usual as I haven't used this cycle so had to do some unexpected maintenance...

A blend of the Wessex Tuesday training and what is in the Spari training plan. Wessex session today was Medium hills and I just got to the location when everyone has finished, partially because I was late getting to the Uni, partially because I kept getting lost running to the location... but in any case I already started the training instead of just a warm-up as that happened through my cycle commute there.
Spari training session was supposed to be a 45-49 min fartlek session with a 2min fast - 4 min slow type run on level ground, so I combined the two by running a roughly 2+min fast / 2+min slow pace, but of course it ended up being an undulating run. Once I got to the Wessex hills location, I then continued by running the full length hill, with each rep up/down the same effort (usually the effort is only up with recovery down), alternating the effort every 2nd rep, doing 10 of these before going back to the Uni.

Still running in the 1/2 size larger training shoe, but the toe started to stop bothering me now, even though it is still far from being fully healed. I will try normal size shoes from the weekend. Felt quite good after the session.

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